AP file photoDo recruiting rankings mean anything? You'd better believe it. And if history is any guide, Ohio State fans can expect some great things out of quarterback Terrelle Pryor, shown signing with OSU in 2008.

Columbus Dispatch columnist Bob Hunter is an out-of-touch old codger. But you should buy his book about OSU legend Chic Harley, which you can purchase here.

With football National Signing Day two days ago comes intense recruiting coverage. Part of the coverage is the recruiting rankings, both of individual players and of overall classes. With the rankings comes the backlash, the idea that the rankings don't matter.

To quote from Hunter, "Anyone who has followed this stuff even casually knows that the rankings don't mean anything."

To me, Signing Day is no different than the NFL Draft, except that there is no order. Schools like USC, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Oklahoma, Miami and Ohio State can draft as many times in the first round as they want, and other schools won't get a pick until the seventh round.

Now, Tim Couch was the No. 1 pick in the draft and Tom Brady was picked in the sixth round. Does that mean that, given a choice, and with money taken out the equation, NFL teams would rather wait until the sixth round to take a player and let everyone else pick in the first round?

No. Everyone still wants the first-round pick.

Same goes for college. Most schools want the top-rated guys, the players judged as high school seniors to have the most talent. And generally, people who follow recruiting with some seriousness can agree on which players have the most talent.

That's part of what goes into the rankings.

What else goes into ranking players, and therefore, ranking classes? The colleges that are after the player.

Hunter has a problem with the idea that Player X is recruited by MAC schools and listed as a three-star recruit and then Ohio State offers Player X a scholarship and miraculously, his rating increases to four stars.

No kidding. What's the problem there?

Nobody knows more about recruiting than coaches. Their jobs depend on bringing in the right kids. If your employment was influenced by the ability of teenagers, you'd study them pretty seriously, too.

So any good recruiting rankings should reflect the idea that if a more accomplished team is interested in a player, he's likely more talented, or at least more valued as a prospect. And his rating should go up.

And whenever one school pulls in a recruit that was also wanted by that school's major competitors, why shouldn't that be viewed as a victory by fans?

Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, Florida and Penn State all offer Player X a scholarship. This causes Player X to be rated as a five-star recruit. Makes sense to me.

But Young and Peterson were absolute stars, and Harvin was a game-changer. Sims was a star as well, and Williams, while never a Heisman candidate, was a big part of the Penn State offense for four years. Clausen has played for the Irish since the start and still has two years left. And then there's Pryor.

Now let's look at the recruits ranked last in their classes those years. Wayne Spoonhammer. Elbert Bamboozle. Guod Sesiremsel. Chad Chadson. Rusty Limmer. ... OK, this is all made up. No one is ranked last in their class. Move on.

But on an individual player basis, the rankings are less reliable than they are when it comes to team rankings. Like anything, a larger sample size gives you a better chance at meaningful results.

So here's my little research, which Hunter vaguely mentioned in his take.

Between 2005 and 2008, there were 14 schools that had recruiting classes ranked among the top 25 each of those four years.

Here's where those schools, with those four classes of recruits taking up most of the rosters, finished this season.

Eight finished in the top 25, including six of the top nine and both teams in the national title game.

No. 1 Florida 13-1

No. 3 USC 12-1

No. 4 Texas 12-1

No. 5 Oklahoma 12-2

No. 6 Alabama 12-2

No. 9 Ohio State 10-3

No. 13 Georgia 10-3

No. 21 Florida State 9-4

Six finished out of the top 25.

Michigan 3-9

Miami 7-6

Auburn 5-7

Clemson 7-6

LSU 8-5

South Carolina 7-6

Michigan had a lost year under first-year coach Rich Rodriguez after several of those players left.

Auburn and Clemson failed to such a degree with their talent that coaching changes were made.

LSU disappointed in part because one of the major recruits in that group, quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, left the program.

Miami was still getting its footing under second-year coach Randy Shannon.

And South Carolina ... well, it's Steve Spurrier.

Bob Hunter would look at that list and probably, say, "See, of those 14 teams, only eight were any good. That's barely half."

I'd look at it this way.

If you wanted to finish in the top 10 in the country this season, you needed to consistently bring in highly ranked classes.

Six out of the 14 teams with four classes in the top 25, or 43 percent, finished in the top 10.

Four of the 105 teams in major college football that didn't have four classes in the top 25, or 4 percent, finished in the top 10.

In which of the two groups would you prefer your team to reside?

So I'm not going to ignore the rankings, and I don't think you should either. As for Hunter ... he actually tells a great story about the recruitment of Chic Harley 90 years ago. You know, the greatest player in OSU history.

Guess what, Bob: Sounds like Chic would have been a five-star recruit.

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